This was the public diary of Faith Meckley, who traveled cross-country in a van and met her husband, Alex Televantos, while on the road. This blog is no longer active — you can follow Alex and Faith at https://theearthlingdream.com

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Hayduke the 2000 Chevy Express van is in for another great ride. One of my close friends, Kris Bosela, purchased Hayduke not long before Alex and I left for Australia. He’s been busy making all sorts of modifications to the van and turning it in to his very own mobile home.

I know many of you followed this blog because you were interested in the van life, so I thought you might like to see Hayduke’s next adventure. Kris has been really creative with the renovations, and I’m actually a little envious of his set up! If you want to get some ideas for your own van life adventure, you’ll definitely want to follow along.

Kris and Hayduke! Photo by Kris Bosela

Not only is Kris being inventive with the interior set up, he’s also being inventive with his entire approach to van life. He wants to use Hayduke not to escape into America’s greater nowheres like I did, but to foster and nourish community. His message and aspirations are incredibly inspiring, and he’s started a blog so that he can share his ideas and progress with the world.

“On my way to finishing my Doctoral degree for Physical Therapy and starting my career as a Travel PT, I want to live in a way that brings purpose to everything I do. I will be reflecting on my challenges, sharing my successes, spinning tales of crazy adventures, and otherwise telling my story about what I am doing and why it is so important for me to share it. Everything that I am doing this year I want to center around the following three values: SERVICE TO OTHERS. BUILDING COMMUNITY. FOLLOW MY PASSIONS.”

If you still want to follow mine and Alex’s adventures, here’s where you can find us (as this blog is no longer active):

Alex and I are excited to announce The Earthling Dream — our vision for a sustainable lifestyle and our effort to document it. We hope the visual and written content on our new website, theearthlingdream.com, will provide inspiration for viewers to recognize their personal responsibility in the global environmental crisis and find motivation to be part of the solution.

The following are a sample of excerpts from my journal that I kept while I was on the road. I started journaling as soon as the 2016 spring semester of college finished. The day I left Ithaca College, May 14, is marked as “Day 1, Year 1.”

I stab my machete into the rain forest slope, hilt up so I don’t lose it. Tip when working a in the thick of the scrub: always leave your tools in a vertical position, or spend most of your time trying to find them again.

I sit down on the soil between a young orange jacaranda and a mango tree, the mangoes vivid orange and green fruit has been gashed by the cheeky flying foxes overnight.

The ground is soggy from days of rain and quickly soaks through my pants. The musk of the seeding mustard grass floats like a mist on the morning air.

When I bought Hayduke (2000 Chevy Express van, 1500) last year, I thought I would probably drive him until he didn’t work anymore. But, as I’ve said before, plans change. Hayduke can’t come with Alex and I to Australia, and we plan on being gone for quite a while. I’d rather see the van enjoyed by a new owner than have it sit in a driveway and rust into oblivion.

Alex and I would like to sell Hayduke in the form that suits him best: a van-home. Our asking price is $3,200. Keep reading for more details, and click on the photo collages for a slideshow. Continue reading “Van-home for sale”→

Back in the fall, My grandmother contacted me to ask if I would consider flying home for Thanksgiving, and offered to pay for my tickets. It was a sweet gesture, but I declined. I knew that I wasn’t ready to come home yet, even just for a brief visit. I knew I still had a long road of self reflection and learning ahead of me. I didn’t know how the story ended yet — so I wasn’t ready to try to tell it at the dinner table.

I read a book on a beach in California with the coastal redwoods to my back and the Pacific Ocean roaring before me. I took a solitary walk at the rim of Crater Lake in Oregon, finding my favorite shade of blue in its clear waters. I climbed for two days by myself near Sisters, Oregon after the presidential election, seeking peace and solitude among the rocks as my divided country slipped into chaos. I drove through a bison herd in South Dakota, laughing with delight as they licked the salt off my van with their rough tongues. I wandered through an ancient forest in North Dakota and saw the shortness of my human life foretold in the lines on the petrified tree bark. And then I arrived in Standing Rock, where I would meet and marry my husband Alex — a development in the story I could not even have imagined.

As February rolled around and the police presence around the protest encampment grew and our personal funds shrank, Alex and I knew it was time to go. And this time, I felt ready to come home. I felt I had walked a complete circle. Continue reading “Home sweet New York”→

Alex and I are in limbo at the moment as we prepare for our future travels in Australia. We will be flying to Sydney on May 1st. Until then, Alex and I are home in New York with my family, and I am working a temporary job to save money for our travels, and we continue to wait for updates on Alex’s immigration status. Van life is on hold for now, although we are still sleeping each night in our comfortable van bed (yes, even though it’s winter).

As I go about each day, I recall many vivid moments from my travels with a deep fondness. More often than not, the moments I spent in solitude with nature at some of the incredible campsites I discovered come to mind.

I’ve slept in my van in everything from Wal-Mart parking lots and city streets to rest stops, road pull-offs, and sketchy woodland “campgrounds” in the middle of nowhere. Primarily, I used freecampsites.net while I was on the road to find free places to bunk down for the night. It was always hit or miss, but I did find quite a few gems.

More than anything, I enjoyed these campsites because of their remoteness and the solitude they offered. That liberating feeling of escape can easily be ruined by trash, loud neighbors, scaring off the wildlife, and decimation of natural formations. So please, if you do go to any of these places on my recommendation, don’t make me regret writing this blog post. Leave it in as good of condition or better so it can be enjoyed by the next person. Continue reading “Favorite free van campsites”→